Re: Asmodeus. Hm. Makes sense.
I just guessed archon due to his explicit connection with heaven.
Angel is pretty solid, though, too. Either way, he was basically considered a hero.
Re: Cthulu: you're preaching to the choir, my friend. That's just the standard line/phrasing of most mythos entities. I think it's pretty clear from Nyaethotep's interference, to Cthulu's hatred (although he also seems to think boats look tasty, so I'm uncertain of his intellect level - or maybe he was in one of those weird sleep-walking dreams, which is kind of funny; he woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and can or wot wondering what the heck happened), to daggum Yog-Sothoth's own multiple attempts to use us mere fleshy mortals as a method of getting into this world (not to mention Shub Nugura) - no, we're kind of relevant to their interests a lot, one way or the other. I'll buy that they're pretty alien in thought pattern (though they still like to breed and procreate exactly like normal living creatures and they seem to eat/sleep/poop/spawn/conquer/etc. like normal sentiments - they just seem to get better from death sometimes and drove people nuts with fear and cause mutations; which is daggum terrifying on its own; also seems kind of exactly like the sorts of shenanigans certain fiends might try to pull... hmmm...)
Dang it! I'm sick! I blame it on medication! Medication, I say! Blaaaaarrrrrg~!
Developer
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Does anyone know how canon the comics are considered to the setting history? Because everything up there is just from the comics, so if they are not canon or are questionable canon... nevermind! XD
The comics are considered canon. The scripts are all vetted by (and often written by) members of Paizo's editorial staff, and all game content is developed internally, rather than by Dynamite. Other than the material's format and distribution by a company other than Paizo, it's as canon as anything else we publish.
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Asmodeus is so old he's gone senile. There he is, sitting on the 9th plane of Hell, thinking "What did I come down here for?"
Does anyone know how canon the comics are considered to the setting history? Because everything up there is just from the comics, so if they are not canon or are questionable canon... nevermind! XD
The comics are considered canon. The scripts are all vetted by (and often written by) members of Paizo's editorial staff, and all game content is developed internally, rather than by Dynamite. Other than the material's format and distribution by a company other than Paizo, it's as canon as anything else we publish.
Awesome! Thanks, Mark!
Asmodeus is so old he's gone senile. There he is, sitting on the 9th plane of Hell, thinking "What did I come down here for?"
"I did it! I rolled a twenty! I cut off >insert god/dess name here< head!"
Garbage like that is why statless gods were instituted in my games >a long, long time< ago...
Can I also point out that Aroden himself had an epic battle with Tar-Baphon even before he became a mythic lich, and still couldn't completely finish him off. With this in mind, it's probably safe to say that the gods aren't completely out of reach of high-level player characters. The real reason Paizo hasn't statted any of them out is to discourage muchkins from going on god-stomping rampages.
At the time, I'm uncertain if Aroden was truly a god yet.
(He was immortal and a hero for a long time before he became a god. He may well have been, though; I used to know, I've just kind of forgotten at the current time. I blame medicine and sick. I am really going to miss having that as an excuse, later... XD)Either way, Tar-Baphon tricked him: Aroden did, in fact, kill Tar... it's just that when he did so, it was part of a really elaborate suicide scheme on the part of Tar to get killed by Aroden for the express purpose of becoming a mythic lich.
That said, even more to back up your point:
- Savith defeated and beheaded Ydursius (though it cost her her life, and he wasn't technically "dead-dead"; later his skull was turned into an artifact; even later he was <spoiler!>*)
- Tar-Baphon killed the demigod (at the time) Arazni ("humiliated" is the term; she was "only" a demigod, and was Aroden's herald, but was noted as being more powerful than normal heralds and was definitely divine)
- Aboleths created a weapon that killed two gods - Acavna and Amazen (this became the Starstone, making new gods, much to the Aboleths' chagrin; oops)
- the "mere" demon-lord Lamashtu killed Curchanus (by way of tricking him into trapped territory controlled by her, plus a massive rush of "lesser" demons, then a coup-de-grace by her to claim his divinity, though it wasn't perfect, as some of it got transferred to Desna at Curchanus' will)
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EDIT: For the record, CR 36 is where they "expect" gods to "start" (more or less) as a rough guestimate - not that gods are CR 36, but that CR 36 is basically where they think god stuff starts to come online instead of PF rules.
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At the time, I'm uncertain if Aroden was truly a god yet.
In my own campaigns in Golarion, I've strongly implied that Aroden was never actually a god and the Starstone doesn't work exactly people think it does.
That's thrown our divine caster of Cayden Cailean for a bit of a loop. Fun stuff.
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If I understand Aroden's timeline correctly, Arodon would've been a demigod at the time he killed Tar-Baphon.
Tar-Baphon's mythic ascension actually required being killed by a divine being, though it apparently took Tar-Baphon much longer to get back up than he expected.
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How do we know that Asmodeus isn't all that and such a super-genius that he just tricked all of Celestia early on? Simple: a non-demon lord demon overpowered him and stole his stuff, after Big A had carved his own symbol on said demon's forehead and placed said demon under his power. Said demon rose to demonlord for the chutzpah. (That was Baphomet, by the way. He's not a particularly impressive demon lord, as far as demon lords go. He's actually kind of weak, though he's not terrible in every way.)
I agree with the rest (mostly anyway), but this bit isn't true, or is at least highly misleading. Baphomet is a pretty impressive guy, even for a Demon Lord. He's not the highest CR or best in combat, but he is the smartest Demon Lord currently statted (which is how he put one over on Asmodeus). Talking about him as 'not particularly impressive' is incorrect. He's the single most impressive Demon Lord...in the area he beat Asmodeus at.
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"I did it! I rolled a twenty! I cut off >insert god/dess name here< head!"
Garbage like that is why statless gods were instituted in my games >a long, long time< ago...
*Singing* -To the tune of 'American Pie'
A long long Time ago,I can still remember,
How those munchkins used to make me cry.
And I knew if I had my chance,
I would make those munchkins dance,
and maybe I'd be happy for a while.
...
How do we know that Asmodeus isn't all that and such a super-genius that he just tricked all of Celestia early on? Simple: a non-demon lord demon overpowered him and stole his stuff, after Big A had carved his own symbol on said demon's forehead and placed said demon under his power. Said demon rose to demonlord for the chutzpah. (That was Baphomet, by the way. He's not a particularly impressive demon lord, as far as demon lords go. He's actually kind of weak, though he's not terrible in every way.)I agree with the rest (mostly anyway), but this bit isn't true, or is at least highly misleading. Baphomet is a pretty impressive guy, even for a Demon Lord. He's not the highest CR or best in combat, but he is the smartest Demon Lord currently statted (which is how he put one over on Asmodeus). Talking about him as 'not particularly impressive' is incorrect. He's the single most impressive Demon Lord...in the area he beat Asmodeus at.
What'ya'know.
I do not remember him being that smart. I must be blending my baphomets or something. :)
I blame the medicine! The sickness! The disease! The people! The man! Anything but me!
Clearly I'm an infallible genius who can never be wrong except on purpose! NEVER, I SAY, EXCEPT ON PORPOISE~!
IT'S ALL PART OF MY DESIIIIIGGGGGNNNN~!
like asmodeus, cthulu, and sephiroth, obvs >.>
Well, keep in mind he's got that 37 without gear/wishes. So potentially at 48 once you consider his 780,000 gp in treasure (though honestly, a friggin' demon lord should really, really have more wealth than a L20 PC.)
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Well, keep in mind he's got that 37 without gear/wishes. So potentially at 48 once you consider his 780,000 gp in treasure (though honestly, a friggin' demon lord should really, really have more wealth than a L20 PC.)
I'm curious how many GMs do that. I know that many do, in the vein Ashiel's always pushing for. I suspect, however, that a surprisingly large number, run him right out of the box - they take the printed monster stats and go, "Yep - that's him." and run with it in a game.
Also, I always wonder about such super-entities, whether or not designers presuppose they've acquired such things as wishes (or books or whatever inherent method*) when accounting their current scores; because if not - why have they not done that? I mean, really, it's not that hard. They're basically minor gods by now. Acquiring that inherent bonus should have been something that happened a few thousand years ago, and hence been present within the statblock... but if it's not presumed within the statblock... why? Is there a reason? Is it a good one? If so, what could it be?
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It's the kind of rabbit hole that I fall into when trying to beef up such creatures with exactly that kind of stuff.
his 780,000 gp in treasure (though honestly, a friggin' demon lord should really, really have more wealth than a L20 PC.)
... actually, he does - a lot more, in fact; he just has most of it tied up in non-liquid* assets. EDIT: Think of it like a multi-billionaire super-genius who has most of his stuff tied up in combinations of land, stocks, and investments. And then those meddling ki- er, lousy adventurers have to come in and ruin everything~! *shakes fist*
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Nah, I wouldn't assume a high-end creature has wishes already factored into its stats. The bestiary entry of a creature is always intended to represent the "baseline" version which has numbers appropriate for its CR, and GMs should customize from there to fit their game.
A high CR monster that's given wishes/gear will effectively jump up to the numbers of a higher CR creature. Possibly by several steps.
For example, if Baphomet is given +6 to all stats gear (I.e., standard for a L20 PC), his numbers jump from the CR 27 baseline to approximately the CR 30 baseline. If you gave him a proper set of big Six, he'd actually have numbers above the CR 30 baseline, despite only being CR 27.
Though that really just emphasizes one of the issues with the design of high CR monsters - IMO, there should be much larger jumps in the numbers between the CRs...
See, DMW's and Zhangar's takes are pretty much exactly the opposite conclusions of each other and both are reasonable conclusions to come to, ... depending upon your expectations of the game.
I think that's why, after a certain point, it gets a little vague, officially-speaking, what they have ("other treasure").
Basically, different groups' play styles will have different levels of optimization and even different rules systems and interpretations of those rules. By starting out with a printed base, you show a, "you must be this tall to ride" sign - signaling what the Devs generally expect out of players' capabilities - but by allowing for variance permits GMs to heavily alter and influence and alter things to tailor for their group. It gets pretty messy, though. I think it might be nice to see a presumed "high optimized" statblock - with the CR remaining the same, but the numbers artificially inflated through treasure and similar such.
(I mean, yeah, Internet think-tanks would be able to pool collective thought process to take anything down "easily" - but that's the nature of a think-tank.)
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I may be wrong but I think it says that Lamashtu was a Demon lord when she killed the dude she killed, which means she was CR25/30 creatures killing a god. There just aren't rules for it.
Also lore people correct me if I'm wrong there xD